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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29994312">A Simple Legend</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starffledust/pseuds/Starffledust'>Starffledust</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wander Over Yonder (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Bittersweet Ending, But not NOT a happy ending, Character Study, Gen, Guilt, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Not Really A Happy Ending, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Short One Shot, Survivor Guilt, i think</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:00:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>653</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29994312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starffledust/pseuds/Starffledust</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He could've helped, but he didn't, because he just couldn't stop himself from wandering away.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Simple Legend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My brain went "Run away and then come back to find your old life is gone" and my fingers went straight to Google Docs</p><p>This is highly unedited and short, but I'm posting it in all its simple and rough glory because I love this fandom and it's really just downhill from here content-quantity-wise.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sometimes, he wishes he had been more heroic.</p><p>He should be something to match his legends, something smart and daring, something so much more than the small thing he had become.</p><p>Sometimes, he thinks of how weak he really was.</p><p>It should’ve been a brave thing, his origins. But they were just as plain as anyone else’s.</p><p>He had a planet, a people who called themselves by certain names and argued over common phrases. There were families and enemies. No one was good or bad, they simply were.</p><p>He wasn’t a good kid.</p><p>Oh, he was polite and always helped with packing away food or doing laundry. He remembers helping his mother make bread in the kitchen every holiday. He always did want to help.</p><p>But he still could never be a good kid, for the simple reason that kids shouldn't be as curious as he.</p><p>Kids should explore and learn, sure. And they should enjoy every second of it—the more you know, the more you grow—but not at the expense of their loved ones. A lost child did no one any good.</p><p>And he certainly had been lost a long time, ever since he smelled the open air and ran along solid ground. Nothing could tether him, and that’s what made him a terrible kid to his parents who only ever wished for a family.</p><p>He walked off one day, and even now he could never say why. There was something itching in his chest, right above his stomach and deep in his ribs. A song in the trees and a caress on the wind, coaxing him away from his parents who only ever showered him with love.</p><p>The trees were lonely and winding. He couldn't find his way out again.</p><p>A traveler had found him, their mouth wide like a fish when they saw him sitting in a clearing with a tattered brown hat and worn shoes. Their arms stilled on the strange screen they were tapping, and they rushed over to him, asking so many questions that he didn’t understand. </p><p>In the end, they packed him into their ship with food and gadgets he had never seen. He never knew his planet was so far behind the times, but here was proof of ray guns and tablets and desk fans!</p><p>He never saw his planet again, but he didn't particularly care. When he looked out the window of the ascending ship, trying to spot his old house or maybe a few blurs of familiar fur, he saw only barren land, like someone had carved right through the middle, a large crack running through the center of the planet.</p><p>There were no more people to remember.</p><p>“Don't stare at it too much,” the traveler had said. “It’ll hurt less that way. And you can't help what’s passed.”</p><p>He had only shaken his head, not tearing his gaze away as more of the earth split and cracked. “I could've helped them,” he had said to the traveler and the universe as a whole. “I just wandered too far away, but if I’d known I could have helped them.”</p><p>The traveler had sighed at that, as if he had said something particularly worth pity. “I’m sorry, kid. Things just happen, and sometimes we can’t change it."</p><p>But he knew. He knew the truth.</p><p>He could've helped, if he had been there. If he had only cared enough about his own people to stay with them, he could’ve done something to save them. If some strange traveler could have a metal contraption which shot through space at high speeds, he could help at least one other person live.</p><p>But he wasn't a hero for this story. He was only one lost child who did no one any good.</p><p>So, he resolved that next time he would be there. He would try harder. He would do whatever it took.</p><p>He would save them.</p>
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